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Missile launcher
, a tripod-mounted infantry ATGM system.]] A missile launcher is a weapon which fires a self-powered guided projectile. It is distinct from a rocket launcher, which fires a self-powered unguided projectile, though in less formal use the terms are often treated as interchangeable. Infantry guided missiles are typically either launched rested on top of the gunner's shoulder, or from a tripod or similar mounting. History The fundamentals of guided missile research date back to the first experiments in radio control in the last decade of the 19th century. The first weapons to be radio-controlled were naval torpedoes, with the first examples demonstrated in 1909. By the 1930s, radio control was a sufficiently mature technology that the Soviet military had already fielded remote controlled "teletanks" in combat, while the British Royal Navy employed full-sized remote-controlled Tiger Moth biplanes as gunnery targets. Research in applying this technology to the control of missiles and bombs began in the 1930s with the first prototype systems developed during the closing years of the Second World War. However, missile systems were restricted to vehicle use until the late 1950s due to the challenge of miniaturizing a guidance system to the point infantry could reasonably carry it. The advent of the transistor was a great step forward in this regard. The first infantry missile systems still used missiles too large for an enclosed gun-like launcher, instead being launched from a portable firing rail or their own carrying box. The first such system to be issued in quantity was the French Nord Aviation SS.10 (Sol-Sol, "Surface to Surface"), a box-launched system. This was based on WW2 German work on a rail-launched wire-guided MCLOS ATGM for aircraft called the Ruhrstahl X-7. This system entered service with the French military in 1955, with the improved SS.11 entering service a year later: however, an infantry version of the latter as not produced until 1962. Another French box-launched system, ENTAC (ENgin Téléguidé Anti-Char, "Remote controlled engine, anti-tank"), entered service in 1957. The US military adopted both the SS.10 (on a limited basis) and ENTAC, under the designations MGM-21A and MGM-32A. The Soviet Union acquired examples of these systems, along with the Swiss Cobra ATGM that had entered service in 1957. The Turopov OKB (later Kolomna Machine Design Bureau), who had already built the 3M6 Shmel (Шмель, "Bumblebee," NATO reporting name AT-1 Snapper) vehicle-mounted ATGM, were directed to produce a similar man-portable MCLOS system. In 1963 they produced the first variant of the 9M14 Malyutka (Малютка, "Little One" NATO reporting name AT-3 Sagger) anti-tank missile, one of the most widely-produced ATGMs of all time. Britain started work on its own portable MCLOS missiles system in 1956, the Vickers Vigilant (VIsually Guided Infantry Light ANti-Tank), as a replacement for the bulky and ineffective Malkara vehicle-mounted missile system. The Vigilant entered service in the early 1960s, though by 1966 it was already being phased out in favor of the Swingfire missile. The US Marine Corps also acquired a production license for the Vigilant. The US military began studies of a second-generation guidance system for ATGMs at Redstone Arsenal starting in January 1957, quickly settling on the idea of a tube-launched, optically tracked, wire guided missile, a concept described by the acronym TOW. Three roles were identified for new ATGM systems, heavy antitank weapon (HAW), a crew-served support weapon to replace SS.10, ENTAC and the M40 recoilless rifle, medium antitank weapon (MAW), a more portable infantry system to replace the M67 recoilless rifle, and combat vehicle weapon system (CVWS), a missile that could be fired from either a tube launcher or a closed-breech gun launcher. The TOW label would eventually become associated only with the HAW, which became the BGM-71 TOW and entered service in 1970, while the MAW would become the M47 Dragon, the world's first man-portable shoulder-launched anti-tank missile, entering service in 1974. In the mid-1950s the US-based Convair aircraft company had begun studies of a man-portable surface-to-air missile to combat fast jets, and in 1957 the US military laid out the first official requirements for the system: Convair was awarded a contract to start development on what would become the FIM-43 Redeye MANPADS in 1958, using a seeker adapted from the AIM-9B Sidewinder air-to-air missile. The Soviet Union learned of this program as it was nearing completion and supplied information on it to Turopov OKB, who started work on their own first-generation MANPADS, the 9K32 Strela-2 (Cтрела, "Arrow," NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail), in 1964. Redeye entered limited production in 1962 though the final mass-production FIM-43C was not produced until 1968, while the SA-7 was accepted for service in 1968 with full production starting in 1970. Due to the limitations of period IR sensors, both systems were of a type known as "hot metal trackers," only able to detect the incandescent metal inside a target jet aircraft's engine nozzle. code for the full system is 9K111.]] The Soviet Union began work on a counterpart to the American SACLOS anti-tank missile programs in 1962, choosing to develop two different missile systems which would use a common launcher: these were the smaller 9M111 Fagot (Фагот, "Bassoon," NATO reporting name AT-4 Spigot) and larger 9M113 Konkurs (Конкурс, "Contest," NATO reporting name AT-5 Spandrel). The AT-4 was first fielded in 1970, the same year the American BGM-71 TOW entered service, while the AT-5 took another four years: as a result, the first generation 9P135 launcher cannot fire the AT-5. The Soviet counterpart to the Dragon, 9M115 Metis (метис, roughly "mixed-race," NATO reporting name AT-7 Saxhorn) was introduced in 1978. France also started development of a SACLOS wire-guided missile system in 1962, the MILAN (Missile d'infanterie léger antichar, "Light anti-tank infantry missile," also a pun on the French word for "kite" in reference to the missile being wire-guided). This system entered service in 1972, and was widely exported, seeing service with many NATO militaries. The first generation of MANPADS had proven to be inefficient and easily spoofed by countermeasures, and in the late 60s and early 70s a number of nations commenced programs to either make better IR seeking missiles or create weapons with seeker systems that were harder to defeat. The Soviet Union began a program in 1964 to produce a both an incremental and a large-scale upgrade to the SA-7, the latter resulting in the 9K34 Strela-3 (NATO reporting name SA-14 Gremlin) in 1974. The US started work on a similar upgrade to Redeye in 1967, producing the FIM-92 Stinger in 1978. Other nations focused instead on line-of-sight guided weapons, such as the British MCLOS Shorts Blowpipe and its SACLOS successors, and the Swedish LOSBR RBS 70. In the mid 70s Japan began work on a pair of ATGM systems to replace the obsolete vehicle-mounted MCLOS Type 64 MAT missile. Their designers were given the unusual stipulation that it should be possible to detach the sighting unit from the launcher and fire the system remotely. The smaller Type 79 Jyu-MAT, a system roughly equivalent to MILAN, used a standard IR SACLOS system with the sight unit able to be placed up to 55 yards (50 meters) from the launcher. The larger Type 87 Chu-MAT was roughly equivalent to TOW, and had an even more unusual feature: it was a semi-active laser homing (SALH) missile system, with the sight unit a portable laser designator. This allowed the system to function with the sight unit placed up to 220 yards (200 meters) from the launcher. anti-tank missile. The EFP warhead is the diagonal structure in the missile's midsection.]] In 1979, anticipating possible future developments in tank armor, the Swedish company Bofors AB began work on the first man-portable system to use an overfly top-attack (OTA) flightpath, resulting in the RBS 56 BILL (Bofors, Infantry, Light & Lethal) missile in 1985. Rather than using an impact warhead, this system would fly over the target and launch a solid explosively formed penetrator (EFP) into the weak top armor of the tank, piercing the turret roof or engine deck. Actual guidance for the BILL was SACLOS, with the warhead triggered by a proximity fuze. The later RBS 56B BILL 2 upgraded the system to have two EFP warheads, the front a 40 mm precursor and the rear a 110 mm primary penetrator, in order to defeat upward-facing ERA, and added additional impact and soft (non-metallic) target engagement modes, the latter simply disabling the warhead's magnetic detonation sensor. The BILL inspired a number of later OTA systems, including the TOW-2B, FGM-172A SRAW and MBT LAW. A flurry of ATGM development took place following the introduction of the Israeli Blazer explosive reactive armor in 1982 and the first iteration of the Soviet Kontakt series in 1984, with many existing infantry missile systems being reworked to carry tandem-charge warheads over the following years. It was also clear that this would be a necessary feature for all future systems using HEAT warheads. In 1983 America commenced the Advanced Antitank Weapon System - Medium (AAWS-M, pronounced "awesome") program with the goal of designing a next-generation portable anti-tank weapon to replace the ineffective and obsolete M47 Dragon. This project was heavily monitored by other states: while the main design became the FGM-148 Javelin, the LOSBR Ford Aerospace design was highly influential in the development of the Russian 9M133 Kornet (Корнет; "Cornet," NATO reporting name AT-14 Spriggan) the imaging infrared/fiber-optic Hughes AAWS-M submission influenced the development of the Israeli Rafael Spike, particularly the launch unit, and the 1986 Texas Instruments/Martin Marietta proof-of-concept demonstrator, lighter and simpler than the final Javelin, inspired the Japanese Type 01 LMAT. The period of asymmetric warfare following the beginning of the War on Terror in 2001, with opposing forces rarely having any meaningful access to modern armored vehicles, resulted in the development of alternative munitions for ATGM systems. These focused on effectiveness against reinforced structures or anti-infantry effect through the use of dual-purpose warheads with fragmentation elements, or thermobaric warheads. Types MANPADS.]] While there are many types of guided missile system, infantry systems typically fall into the following two categories: ATGM An Anti-Tank Guided Missile system is designed to engage ground-based armored vehicles. Infantry ATGM systems usually subdivide into "portable" and "heavy," the latter being somewhat analogous to heavy machine guns in their employment and limitations. Due to the requirement to carry a powerful hollow-charge or explosively formed penetrator warhead, they are not manoeuvrable enough to attack fixed-wing aircraft, though they are often suitable for attacking helicopters. ATGMs are roughly divided into "generations:" * Generation 1: MCLOS, wire-guided, usually box-launched. * Generation 2: SACLOS, usually wire-guided, tube-launched. * Generation 3: Wireless fire-and-forget. Sometimes also includes SALH. "Fourth generation" is a term generally associated with the Rafael Spike, but is not particularly well-defined: some attempts at creating a meaningful definition make SACLOS generation 2 and tube-launched SACLOS generation 3 or place tandem-charge warheads in the third generation and fire-and-forget in the fourth. Other sources simply call Spike a third-generation system. The French MBDA Missile Moyenne Portée is marketed as a "fifth-generation" system, and some press associated with the Spike-ER II uses the term too. MANPADS A MAN Portable Air Defense System is an infantry missile launcher designed to engage aircraft. They are typically not suited to engaging vehicles due to their use of fragmentation warheads, though a few examples have a limited dual-purpose functionality due to using kinetic penetrators or hollow charge warheads. IR-seeking missiles are also regarded as having generations: * Generation 1: Uncooled spin-scan lead sulfide seeker, limited IR spectrum "hot metal seeking," tail-chase only, little or no ability to distinguish flares. "Noisy" detector leads to trouble dealing with IR scattering and limits the system's usefulness in harsh weather or at night. * Generation 1.5: Label applied to later versions of FIM-43 Redeye which have a gas-cooled seeker but still use spin-scan detectors. * Generation 2: Supercooled lead sulfide, iridium antimonide or mercury cadmium telluride detector. Improved image discrimination from this plus the use of a conical scanning seeker allows a limited ability to lock onto airframes rather than just engines, and much better sensor noise reduction improves all-weather capability. * Generation 3: Pseudo-imaging rosette scanning with dual-channel IR or combined IR/UV, improving resistance to ECM. All-weather and all-aspect capable, though frontal engagement is usually inferior to side or rear. * Generation 4: Full-imaging IR focal plane array/FLIR or combined imaging IR/UV seeker. Fully all-aspect capable. Launch modes and backblast .]] As with rocket systems, missiles are described as having one of two launch modes, either hot/hard launch, where the main booster fires immediately, or a cold/soft launch where a smaller launch motor fires to eject the missile from its casing, with the main booster firing after a short delay allows the missile to clear its launch site. The "cold" term is usually applied to silo and VLS launched missiles rather than infantry systems. Modern infantry missile systems use soft launch exclusively. "Soft" launch is only in relative terms, and such missiles still have significant areas behind them where potentially lethal blast and overpressure are generated by the firing of the launch motor. All such missiles will also have a "caution zone" extending further than the danger area where the primary backblast may still cause injury by hurling debris. Firing from indoor enclosures usually requires some efforts to be made to sweep up debris, open doors and in some cases even smash holes in walls to prevent harm to the crew or structural damage to the building from overpressure, though some modern launchers are designed to be simpler to fire from confined spaces. The effects are not confined to physical injury: the use of hearing protection is vital when employing a missile system to avoid permanent deafness. Guidance All missile guidance techniques fit into two super-categories, called GOLIS (go onto location in space) and GOT (go onto target). GOLIS guidance, such as inertial and satellite, manoeuvres the missile to a fixed location. It is not typically used on infantry systems, normally being restricted to weapons such as ICBMs and cruise missiles, though some overfly top attack (OTA) missiles like FGM-172A SRAW and MBT LAW use a GOLIS method, namely pre-programming an autopilot using the measured motion of the target as detected by the launcher. The missile in this system does not use sensor data to steer itself after launch: rather, the target detection system is only used to detonate the warhead, having no role in guidance. GOT, on the other hand, tracks a specific target, and so GOT guidance methods are far more commonly used for attacking mobile targets. There are many subtypes of GOT guidance. Command line-of-sight guidance Command Line-of-sight (CLOS) guidance is where the sight (called a "tracker" in most such systems) designates a target within its own field of view, remotely directing the missile to the system's sightline. The missile is "commanded" in that it is relayed signals from the tracker, either through trailing command wires (wire-guided missiles) or through a transmission method such as radio. It is the most common guidance mode for anti-tank missiles, and also used on some anti-aircraft missiles. * MCLOS - Manual command line of sight. No element of the system is automated: the operator must directly steer the missile using a device such as a joystick, while keeping track of both it and the target. This was the first system of missile guidance developed, used with early guided weapons such as the German Wasserfall SAM and Fritz-X glide bomb, and the American AZON guided bomb. **TV guidance - Television guidance. Subtype of MCLOS where the operator steers the missile using a camera in its nose rather than by tracking it from their own position. * SMCLOS - Semi-manual command line of sight. Missile is steered directly, but either missile tracking or target tracking is automated. * SACLOS - Semi active command line of sight or semi automatic command line of sight. One element of the system is an active beacon or designator and the other is a passive detector that tracks it. ** IR SACLOS - A thermal detector in the launcher tracks a beacon on the missile's tail, generating course corrections to steer it to the tracker's point of aim. ** LOSBR - Line of sight beam riding. The launcher aims a conical radar, radio or laser beam at the target created by rapid scanning, with the missile using a sensor in its tail to detect the scanning of the beam, using this information to steer itself into the middle of the cone. * ACLOS - Automatic command line of sight. Target tracking, missile tracking and guidance are all automated. Homing systems Homing guidance systems have the missile generate its own guidance commands, removing the need for a direct connection between launcher and missile. They subdivide into active homing, in which the missile emits energy of some kind and tracks its reflection from the target, semi-active homing in which the missile tracks energy from an active emitter on either its launch platform or a third-party source, and passive homing, where the missile detects energy emitted by the target only. Active homing requires the missile contain an active emitter, detector, a power supply for both and all the equipment needed to process their signals. The weight and cost restricts active homing to use on air-to-air and anti-ship missiles, and it has yet to be used in any portable system. In a semi-active homing system, the target is illuminated with a designator, either a radar beam (semi-active radar homing, SARH) or a laser (semi-active laser homing, SALH). A passive detector in the missile's nose detects the reflected energy and generates course corrections to intercept the source. The designator can either originate from the launching platform, or from a third-party designator: in some systems like the SALH Hellfire missile, this allows the weapon to be launched "blind" and acquire a target not within the launching platform's line of sight. This functionality is called lock-on after launch (LOAL). The most common method of passive homing is contrast detection, where a detector, either visual-range or more often UV or thermal, looks for areas within its field of view that are significantly brighter or darker than their surroundings, generating course corrections to steer towards an anomaly and intercept it. Modern MANPADS often compare the output of two widely separated IR bands or IR with other types of radiation such as UV or radar so as to defeat countermeasures. Modern tracking systems may assist the contrast detector using some type of tracking gate system, which allows the operator to manually narrow the initial search area: for example, FGM-148 Javelin has the operator draw a box around the desired search area by adjusting track gate markers at its four corners, while designating the target's center of mass with a crosshair. References Category:Missile launchers Category:Firearms by type